FCC’s Broadband Plan Sets Groundwork for National Smart Grid To Transition To More Green Energy Use  

CNSNews has an article on the National Broadband Plan in the US - FCC’s Broadband Plan Sets Groundwork for National Smart Grid To Transition To More Green Energy Use.

The National Broadband Plan, recently published by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), would lay the groundwork for the federal government to establish a nationwide “smart” electrical grid that would change how Americans use and pay for electricity, affecting such things as homes and transportation with battery-powered cars.

The proposal, published March 16, outlines the federal government’s plan to use the nation’s broadband Internet infrastructure to further key national policy goals, including health care, education, and energy.

The intersection of federal energy policy and myriad private sector broadband and wireless Internet networks, which the government hopes to harness, is known as the smart grid, a high-tech linking of the country’s Byzantine electrical infrastructure centered around green energy production and Internet connectivity.

As the plan states, “Broadband and advanced communications infrastructure will play an important role in achieving national goals of energy independence and efficiency."

The proposal explains that to achieve this national goal, the government plans a “massive” build-out of information technology to construct a “smart grid” where government, industry, and individuals can monitor energy production and use in real time, allowing consumers to apparently better control their energy usage and public utilities to apparently better control the production and flow of energy.

“The United States is undertaking a massive communications and information technology buildout to produce the Smart Grid,” the plan says. “The vision is to build a modern grid that enables energy efficiency and the widespread use of both renewable power and plug-in electric vehicles." I.e., electric cars.